Barely a half-hour into a Feb. 1 fishing trip on the Colorado River downstream from Austin, Dr. Bryan Townsend found himself several fish behind his angling partner, Jim Cooper.

Townsend caught up in record fashion; he set a state record and pending world record for Guadalupe bass, the official State Fish of Texas.

It's a heck of a fish tale, involving a crew of dedicated, conservation-minded anglers, state fisheries managers working to ensure the health and survival of one of the state's most iconic freshwater game fish, and a genuinely one-of-a-kind fishery.

"Jim had caught four or five bass before I got my first strike," said Townsend, a 49-year-old Austin dermatologist and inveterate angler. "I wasn't worried. I knew I'd catch fish; I always do when I fish the river with Shea."

Shea McClanahan, a guide with Austin-based All Water Guides, positioned his oar-powered fishing boat so Townsend could cast the crawfish-pattern fly he wielded on the 7-weight fly rod to a spot with slow-moving current. A fish hit as the fly drifted deep in the current.

"When I set the hook, I knew it was a big, strong fish," Townsend, who fishes almost weekly and has fished the Colorado "more times than I can count," said. "But we thought it was a largemouth. We catch a lot of 4- and 5-pound and bigger largemouths in the river."

But when the anglers and guide glimpsed the fish flashing deep bronze in the green water and could see its size, they knew it wasn't a largemouth.

"I was in awe. I knew it was a Guadalupe," said McClanahan, who has fished Central Texas rivers for more than 30 years and guides clients, almost exclusively fly-fishers, on several of the region's waterways. "We've caught thousands of Guadalupe bass, and a lot of them up to 3 pounds. I knew this fish was bigger. I knew this was a special fish."

Uniquely Texas fish

All Guadalupe bass are special fish. Members of the black bass family that includes largemouth and smallmouth bass, Guadalupes are endemic only to Central Texas. The fish are native to the Colorado and Guadalupe river drainages and have evolved to live in the cool, clear, rocky, flowing, spring-fed, highly-aerated waters of Hill Country streams. They live nowhere outside Central Texas. In 1989, the Texas Legislature designated Guadalupe bass as the State Fish of Texas.

Guadalupes are not big fish; a 2-pounder is considered huge. Their native environment accounts for their small stature; most of the clear-water Central Texas waterways holding Guadalupes are nutrient poor, limiting the forage base and working against large fish that require a lot of food.

Evolved to live in waters with considerable current, Guadalupes behave less like their largemouth cousins and more like freshwater trout. Like trout, they prefer waters with current, where they can hide and pounce on smaller fish or invertebrates carried by the flowing water.

The bass Townsend landed from the Colorado River was anything but trout-like. The fish was a "chunk" - deep-bodied and with a girth almost equal to its length. It didn't look like a typical Guadalupe bass. It was too big.

Intrigued by the unusual number of large Guadalupe-like fish anglers were catching from the Colorado River, Marcos DeJesus, San Marcos-based district supervisor for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's inland fisheries division, began a research project to determine the fishes' true identity.

"So far as we can conclude, they seem to be pure Guadalupes," DeJesus said. "That river is a very special fishery."

Knowing the fish in the nutrient-rich river were almost certainly pure-strain Guadalupe bass, McClanahan realized the fish Townsend landed Feb. 1 would challenge the 3.69-pound fish, caught from Lake Travis in 1983, that held the state record.

McClanahan took a length of thick fly line, carefully threaded one end through the small hole the hook made in the fish's mouth, put it back into the water and tied the "stringer" to the boat. Then he phoned a friend and fellow river angler, Jody Gibson, who scrambled to try coordinating the logistics of what they wanted to do.

"Jody made about 75 phone calls," McClanahan said. One of those calls was to DeJesus, who raced from his home to the river.

Ingenuity pays off

When McClanahan rowed to the take-out site, DeJesus was waiting, as was an ice chest and aerator combination to hold and transport the fish.

DeJesus took measurements and photos and a fin clip from the fish for genetic testing, and the whole crew drove to Cabela's Sporting Goods in Buda, the closest place they could find with a certified scale.

On the scales, the 17.25-inch fish weighed 3.71 pounds - just enough to best the 3.69-pound record.

Cabela's allowed Townsend to place the fish in the store's huge fish tank, where it has remained.

It took almost a month to get the results of the DNA testing on the fish. It was a pure Guadalupe.

Record a group effort

Townsend's fish recently was certified as the Texas all-tackle and fly-fishing record for Guadalupe bass. He has submitted applications to the International Game Fish Association, which almost certainly will certify the fish as the world all-tackle and fly-fishing record for Guadalupe bass.

"It was just an awesome day on the water, and getting the record was a true group effort," Townsend said. "Guadalupe bass are such incredible fish, and I've just fallen in love with that river. It's all worked out wonderfully."

Townsend plans to donate the record Guadalupe bass to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, where the fish will be placed in one of the center's huge display tanks and the public will be able to see the exceptional example of a fish that's pure Texan.